Chapter 31 Savannah
Savannah
Idon’t sleep.
I rest, and there is a difference. Sleep is when your body lets go. Rest is when you stay still long enough that your muscles stop screaming, but your brain still will not let its guard down.
Gabriel tries to make the house quiet for me.
He removes people, changes guard rotations, closes doors, and makes the world smaller on purpose.
But my mind still finds corners. It still hears things that aren’t happening.
It still expects a hand on my throat when a hallway creaks, and it still tastes metal in the back of my mouth when someone shuts a door too hard.
I lie in bed staring at the ceiling while Gabriel stands at the window like a statue. He doesn’t move like a man relaxing. He moves like a man counting what could go wrong.
The city outside is dark, and the compound is darker.
My chest rises and falls and rises again. I touch the pendant, and cling to the simple fact of it. Present. Real. I’m here.
Gabriel doesn’t speak for a long time. I can hear his breathing, slow and controlled, like he’s trying to teach my body by example. Then he says, low and careful, “Do you want the lights off?”
I swallow. “Yes,” I whisper.
He turns them off without another word.
The darkness should calm me.
It doesn’t.
Darkness is where my brain likes to replay. Darkness is where my body forgets it’s safe. Darkness is where I can feel the past like it’s in the room with me, leaning over the bed, waiting.
My pulse climbs. Panic crawls up my ribs like a slow thing, like a hand spreading inside my chest, and I force air into my lungs anyway.
In. Out.
My hands shake under the blanket. The fabric slides against my fingers, and Gabriel hears it. He always hears it.
He steps toward the bed slowly, like he’s approaching an animal that might bolt, and stops near the edge without touching. Then he sits. The mattress dips, the shift small, but my body reacts anyway. My heart stutters. My stomach tightens. I hate that it still happens.
Gabriel doesn’t pretend he doesn’t see it. He places his hand on top of the blanket near my hip. His voice stays low.
“You’re here,” he says.
I swallow. “Yes,” I whisper again.
Silence stretches, and then my mouth betrays me.
“What if Cassio sends another man,” I whisper.
Gabriel’s hand tightens slightly. “He won’t get inside,” he says.
My throat burns. “But he’ll try,” I whisper.
His voice turns colder. “Yes,” he says. “He’ll try.”
My stomach flips. “And Romano,” I whisper, because saying his name feels like touching poison.
Gabriel’s jaw flexes. “Romano is already moving,” he says.
I close my eyes and see it anyway. The rumor. The photo. The way my history is treated like a weapon someone else owns.
“I hate being used,” I whisper.
Gabriel doesn’t soften it with comfort words. He answers with truth.
“Then stop letting them use you,” he says.
My eyes snap open. Anger hits so fast it scares me, heat under my ribs, a sudden urge to lash out.
“I’m not letting them,” I hiss.
Gabriel’s gaze stays steady. “You were,” he corrects. “Not anymore.”
My chest tightens. The words should make me feel strong, but instead they make me feel exposed, because not being used means being seen, and being seen has always been dangerous.
My throat tightens. “How,” I whisper.
Gabriel’s voice is quiet. “You speak,” he says.
My stomach drops.
“I can’t,” I whisper automatically.
His gaze sharpens. “Yes you can,” he says.
I blink hard. “Not in front of them,” I whisper.
Gabriel pauses, then says the thing that makes my skin prickle.
“Then we practice,” he says.
Practice is a simple word, but my body hears training. It hears conditioning.
“I don’t want to be trained like a dog,” I whisper.
Gabriel doesn’t flinch. “Good,” he says. “Then we don’t train obedience.”
I stare at him in the dark, trying to catch the trick, because there is always a trick and always a price. His voice lowers.
“We train your nervous system,” he says. “We train your breath. We train your feet staying on the floor when they try to pull you away.”
My throat tightens. “What if I fail.”
Gabriel’s hand presses slightly through the blanket. “Then you fail beside me,” he says. “Not alone.”
My chest aches, because the idea of failing beside someone feels like mercy, and mercy makes me suspicious.
“Why are you doing this,” I whisper.
Gabriel goes quiet for a long beat. When he speaks, his voice is almost too honest.
“Because I’m in love with you,” he says.
The words hit my ribs like a punch. I freeze. My breath stutters. Heat crawls up my throat, and I hate that my first instinct is fear. Not because I don’t want it, but because love feels like a trap when you’ve been owned.
“Don’t say it like that,” I whisper, very small.
“How should I say it,” he asks.
I swallow hard. “Like it doesn’t take something from me,” I whisper.
Silence.
Then Gabriel’s voice drops softer. “It doesn’t take,” he says. “It gives. If you want it.”
If you want it.
My throat tightens. “I don’t know what I want,” I whisper.
Gabriel doesn’t demand an answer. He nods once. “Then we go slow,” he says again. “But we don’t go backward.”
My stomach flips. Backward is where my body keeps trying to go. Backward is where Cassio’s voice still lives. Backward is where Viktor lives. Backward is where I lose my breath.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Do you want to practice tonight,” he asks.
I almost say no. Habit. Fear. Then the rage comes back, sharp and clean.
Cassio tried to send a man. Romano is spreading poison. Mikhail is still out there breathing like he didn’t steal a year of my life.
And I’m tired of being the quiet part.
“Yes,” I whisper.
Gabriel’s voice is steady. “Do you want it in the training room,” he asks, “or here?”
I hesitate. Here feels too intimate. The training room feels safer because it feels like rules and structure, and structure is what kept me alive.
“Training room,” I whisper.
Gabriel nods. “Okay,” he says.
He stands and offers his hand.
I stare at it for a second too long. Hands have meant too many things. Then I reach out anyway. My fingers touch his, warm and callused and real, and he doesn’t squeeze hard. He just holds.
* * *
We walk down the hall.
The house is quiet, but I still hear my heartbeat like it’s trying to escape my chest. I still notice every guard shadow at the corners of my vision. I still count the distance between doors like my body is building an escape route even when I don’t want one.
* * *
We reach the training room.
Mats. Punching bag. Mirror.
The mirror makes my stomach twist because it shows me what I look like now. Not a child. Not a prisoner. A wife. A woman they can’t control. A threat.
Gabriel closes the door behind us, not locking it, just closing it. He faces me, and his posture shifts. Less lover, more leader. Not cruel. Focused.
“Feet,” he says.
I blink. “What.”
“Plant them,” he repeats. “Feel the floor.”
I spread my feet slightly. The mat compresses under my weight, and I can feel where I am, where I end, where the room begins.
My breath catches.
Gabriel watches my shoulders like he’s reading the tiny flinches I pretend aren’t there.
“Pendant,” he says.
My fingers lift automatically and touch it.
He nods once. “Now,” he says. “Say the sentence.”
My throat tightens. My mouth goes dry. The sentence is there, but it feels like it’s behind a locked door, like if I open it everything spills out.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
Gabriel’s gaze stays steady. “Yes you can,” he says.
I swallow, force air in, out, in again.
Then I say it.
Not loud. Shaking.
“I chose this,” I whisper.
The words hang in the room. My stomach twists. My chest tightens. But I don’t disappear.
Gabriel nods once, pride flashing in his eyes like something dangerous. “Again,” he says.
“I chose this,” I whisper again.
“Again.”
My throat burns. “I chose this.”
“Again.”
“I chose this.”
“Again.”
Each time the words get less fragile, less like I’m asking permission to exist. My voice stops trying to hide inside my mouth. My shoulders stop folding inward. I’m standing in front of a mirror watching myself say a sentence I never thought I’d be allowed to say.
Gabriel steps closer, not touching, just close enough that I can feel him. Warmth in the air between us. The quiet pressure of being backed by someone who would burn a world for me.
His voice lowers. “Good,” he murmurs.
I glare, breath shaking. “I still hate that word,” I whisper.
His mouth twitches. “Lie,” he says.
I swallow, and the truth slips out before fear can stop it.
“I hate needing you,” I whisper.
Gabriel doesn’t flinch. “Need isn’t weakness,” he says. “Need is honesty.”
My throat tightens. I look at my reflection. My eyes look too alive, too sharp, like a woman who’s tired of being handled.
My breath shakes, and something in me loosens. Not fully, but enough. Enough to keep practicing. Enough to keep my feet on the floor. Enough to believe my sentence might survive the room that wants to swallow it.
I stare at myself in the mirror and realize something that makes my stomach twist in a new way.
This sentence isn’t just for church.
It’s for every room after that. Every man who thinks he can decide what my face should do. Every hand that thinks it gets to direct me like I’m a piece on a board.
“I chose this,” I say again.
This time my voice doesn’t shake as much.
Gabriel’s eyes darken, approving. “Again,” he says.
I inhale. “I chose this.”
I look at him through the mirror.
And I don’t look away.
* * *
Dear Diary,
I have not slept, not real sleep. I rest.
If I want it, I can take it.
My sentence.
My choice.
I am tired of being used, so I planted my feet, touched the pendant, and said it again and again until my voice stopped trying to hide.
I chose this.